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A quick overview of what to expect in this issue.Download 'TMP_NAME' now



May 2008


Virginia GOP to Determine U.S. Senate Candidate at Convention

Far Right and Libertarians Rally Around Marshall

 

Notre Dame President Speaks on Warfare Ethics

Bishop Walter Sullivan Lecture Series

 

Truth... Relatively Speaking

Relativism in Religious Studies

 

Editor's Corner

Some Etiquette of Western Culture

 

Cogitations 

Free Market in Health Insurance

 

World of Weiss

The Principles of Buddhism and Bush's Budget

 

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Truth... Relatively Speaking

By: Conor Murphy

There are many truths in this world that are undeniable. Human beings have intrinsic value, everyone has a right to defend themselves, and hard work and sacrifice deserve a reward. These are all objectively true facts. No one can debate the validity of these statements—or can they? There is, in fact, a great many professors in the Religious Studies Department at VCU who embrace and preach a philosophy that is quite contradictory to this objective view of reality, with a very one-sided liberal bias. This misguided philosophy is called relativism, and this bias in the classroom needs to be exposed, as I have argued in the previous issue.

 

Relativism states that everything, including all knowledge, is relative to context, culture, and historical time period. This fits in nicely with what the Religious Studies Department seems to support. One professor even openly states in his class that “everything is relative” and “there are no absolutes.”

 

My research with Vladimir Rudenko on the matter focused on RELS 340 Global Ethics and World Religions professors, an area of particular concern to conservatives on campus. One of the professors that we talked to was surprisingly honest about the bias of professors. She says, “My personal opinion is that [...] Read More

Editor's Corner

By: Vladimir Rudenko

Dear Reader,

 

The month of April brought The Broad Street Journal more success than we could have hoped. The name is known, the word is out, our gigantic opposition is already attempting to discredit us—and VCU conservatives are coming out of the closet!

 

Two amusing instances of angst on behalf of the opposition deserve special notice. Our fliers in the Student Commons were several times modified without our knowledge to say that we support racism or oppose art.

 

The accusation of The Broad Street Journal being racist is quite ironic, seeing as we stand in opposition to the greatest case of racism in America today: the Affirmative Action. While we see all human beings as equal individuals, racist organizations such as the NAACP divide the world into white people and colored people. A society is racist until it is colorblind. We fight for a colorblind society. Sen. Obama is right about one thing: there is no white America or black America, there is only the United States of America—but only conservatives realize what it takes to make the painful divisions disappear.

 

If The Broa[...] Read More

Cogitations

By: Britt Sebastian

The greatest fear of the modern fiscal conservative is, without a doubt, “universal healthcare.” Economists realize that such a plan of action would probably do quite a number on our already injured economy. We already have a broken arm; we don’t need a broken back too. Would it be surprising if someone said universal healthcare already exists here in the United States? It surprised me the first time I heard it. The majority of states have laws requiring emergency rooms to see people regardless of their health insurance situation—or ability to pay, for that matter. No worries though, the American taxpayer will pick up the tab. The aforementioned laws also encourage people to visit the emergency room when they don’t have a life-threatening health problem. The emergency room, unlike your average doctor, is required to take them. In the words of former MIT professor of political science Noam Chomsky, “It wastes an enormous amount of time. It’s not preventative care, figuring out how to avoid getting sick in the first place. It’s the most expensive, most inefficient kind of universal health care system you can imagine” (Imperial Ambitions, 196).

 

It is obvious that our current healthcare system is in need of some sort of reform. It is almost reasonably understandable that both potential Democratic presidenti[...] Read More


April 2008


Greetings From The Broad Street Journal

A Letter From the Editor

 

The Soapbox Professor

Environmentalist Bias in a Classroom

 

A Few Inconvenient Truths

Misguided Mr. Gore and His Propaganda

 

Where Did Our Patriotism Go?

Some Thoughts From An Indignant Patriot

 

Proposed State Smoking Ban On Private Property

Individual Rights Under Attack By Proposed Bill

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The Soapbox Professor

By: Conor Murphy

This past semester, I had the opportunity to take a course called “Global Ethics and World Religions.” This course fulfilled three different requirements needed to complete most majors at VCU, so one can assume that many students would end up taking this class sooner or later. At the beginning of the year I was quite excited to attend this class, hoping to learn a bit more about other cultures and religions. Much to my surprise, the overwhelming majority of the class was to be spent on the global ethics part.

 

         The first day of class set the tone for things to come during the semester. The professor first handed out the syllabus and then began to talk about what the course would cover. This was when I first sensed that something wasn’t right. The professor did not talk about the beliefs of different religions or cultures, but rather discussed how it was the responsibility of these religious establishments to help clean up the environment. I couldn’t tell precisely what po[...] Read More

Where Did Our Patriotism Go?

By: Sarah Dunford

When I first came to VCU, I was incredibly excited about going to such a culturally diverse school. I signed up for classes and would show up just a little early to watch all the different people coming to class. Bright-eyed and happy to be here, I recall thinking that this was what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they built this great country.

As I signed up for more and more classes, I began to notice that not everyone was as excited about the United States as I was. The more the professors lectured, the less appreciation I had for my country. I am thirty-one years old, a little older than the average student, so maybe I am just blind to some new attitudes that are considered acceptable. However, the more students I talked to, the more I began to notice that people from other countries show more patriotism towards America than many of the students and professors at VCU.

Read More

Greetings From The Broad Street Journal

By: Vladimir Rudenko

Dear Reader:

As members of the VCU community, we are all blessed with being a part of something truly magnificent. Our university is the largest in the State of Virginia, our diversity is a matter of renown, our achievements are a matter of national pride and the total sum of our individual experiences is a treasure trove of uniquely American splendor. As most other universities in the United States, however, we face a troubling ideological dilemma: the majority of students, professors and media throughout our colleges willingly subscribe to or inadvertently submit to what is collectively labeled “liberalism.” It is therefore my sincere honor to present to you The Broad Street Journal, the new conservative publication for the VCU campus.

This letter is your guide to the origin, philosophy and practices of this publication. The first section tells the story of how we came into being, the second section covers our official views, and the third section discusses our nature as an independent venue for conservative and libertarian writers of the university. I hope that once you[...] Read More